As anyone involved in contracting with the federal government is already well aware, this is the age of complete uncertainty.

What are the government’s requirements? What are its priorities? What is its budget? When will it receive its funding? When will solicitations be issued? When will contract awards be made? Once contract awards are completed, will they last? Will the program survive? What will be the effect on existing contracts of changes in budget priorities, funding reallocations, funding stoppages, funding shortages, government shutdowns, stop-gap funding, the administration’s changing or still unknown goals and intent, etc.?

The only sure “knowns” in contracting today are the multitudinous “unknowns.” The once weakly supported notion of wider use of multi-year funding — to provide increased program stability, efficiencies and contract savings — is a distant memory. Such uncertainty was the subject of a recent message to Congress by the Secretary of Defense.

Nine months after Federal News Radio asked if the agile craze is taking the government by storm, the data and actions continue to show a lack of coordinated contracting approach leading to a bunch of one-off contracts.

Over at the Homeland Security Department is the most obvious example of this growing challenge.

In late April, the Transportation Security Administration awarded Accenture a $64 million contract for the EAGLE II multiple award contract vehicle to transform more than 70 applications into a modern architecture.

About a month later, DHS’s procurement office bailed on setting up its $1.5 billion small-business contract vehicle for agile services after two rounds of awards and two rounds of protests. DHS told the Government Accountability Office (GAO) it didn’t have the expertise to fix the procurement and would develop a new acquisition approach in 2018.

The same agency is trying to implement agile with separate approaches, leading to duplication of resources and potentially putting vendors through the long and costly procurement process multiple times.

The MITRE Corp. has developed a free online platform called Acquisition in the Digital Age (AiDA) to provide tools, references and best practices for agencies to use agile methodologies. It can be accessed here: https://aida.mitre.org/

The Homeland Security Department’s has cancelled its $1.5 billion contract vehicle for agile development services.

Multiple industry sources confirmed DHS alerted the companies and the Government Accountability Office that it would no longer move forward with the troubled small business procurement known as Flexible Agile Support for the Homeland (FLASH).

An email to DHS seeking comment on FLASH was not immediately returned.

It’s unclear what comes next for FLASH—whether DHS will try again with a new procurement or give up entirely on a separate contract vehicle for agile services and rely on an existing one like EAGLE II.

A new digital acquisition platform from not-for-profit technology research and development organization MITRE Corporation is intended to demonstrate how replacing a one-size-fits-all approach with customizable road maps can deliver systems and services faster.

Developed by Pete Modigliani of MITRE’s National Security Engineering Center and Su Chang of MITRE’s Center for Acquisition Management and Science, the ACQUIRE platform uses targeted guidance to accelerate proficiency and efficiency by curating the best resources from dozens of sites and converted static references into a one-stop shop.

The ability to quickly navigate requirements and optimize learning, and therefore design-making, time helps avoid circumstances where the acquisition could become obsolete as it clears the bureaucratic process.

The Homeland Security Department (DHS) has reconsidered which companies are eligible to sell it agile software development services.

DHS’ $1.5 billion contracting vehicle, called Flexible Agile Support for the Homeland, or FLASH, has removed two companies from the original 13 pre-approved vendor list.

FLASH is an experimental contracting system, similar to tech consultancy 18F’s Agile Blanket Purchase Agreement, which aims to make it easier for agencies to buy software development services. It also aims to promote companies that haven’t traditionally sold to government, DHS officials have said.